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50 TESL Reporter 37,2 (2004), pp. 50-63
Effects of Previewing and ProvidingBackground Knowledge on EFLReading Comprehension of AmericanDocumentary Narratives
Shell ZhaohuaYangzhou University, China
Introduction
The schema-theoretic models of the reading process heavily influences the
orientation of educators who deal with acquisition of reading in both first and second
language. (Beck & Carpenter, 1986; Bernhardt, 1991; Rowe & Rayford, 1987).
According to the Schema-theoretic view, a reader plays a very active role in reading
(Adams & Collins, 1979; Anderson & Pearson, 1984), and comprehending a text is an
interactive process of how the reader's Schemata, or knowledge already stored in
memory, function in the process of interpreting new information. The meaning of the
text does not reside in the material itself but in the interaction that takes place between
the reader and the text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Carrell, 1984). In China, it is not
rare phenomenon students know every word in sentences, passages and texts, yet have
no access to the meanings. To put it bluntly, they can not understand the seemingly
understood language forms. Thus, experiencing frustrating difficulties in
comprehension. The reason for this is that there is mismatch between the background
knowledge presupposed by the writer and the background knowledge possessed by the
reader (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983), and this mismatch may elicit misunderstanding
and distortion of the meaning of the text for the readers, especially for ESLIEFL
readers. Research by Anderson (1978), Steffensen, Joag-Dev & Anderson (1979),
Carrell (1987) and Kang (1992) has shown that because of differences in culture or
expertise, EFL students experience comprehension difficulty. However, when
provided with prereading activities, their comprehension improves considerably
(Carrell, 1983; Taglieber, Johnson & Yarbrough, 1988; Chen & Graves, 1995; Zhaojin,
2003). Research has shown that prereading activities such as pictorial context,
vocabulary preteaching, text previewing, preteaching unfamiliar vocabulary are
effective for both L1 and L2 readers (Pearson, Hansen & Gordon, 1979; Grabe, 1991;
Chen & Graves, 1995; Zhaojin, 2003). This study focuses on two prereading
activities-previewing and providing background knowledge. Several L1 studies
Shen - Previewing and Background Knowledge 51
demonstrate that providing background knowledge facilitates understanding and
learning unfamiliar materials (Rowe & Rayford, 1987; Hayes & Tierney, 1982). A few
L2 studies which provided cultural background knowledge for readers also brought
about significant results. Previewing is another prereading activity likely to
appropriate for situations in which texts are difficult and may contain culturally
unfamiliar material. Previews are introductory materials presented to students before
reading to provide specific information about the contents of the reading materials.
Over the past 20 years, the Ll studies were consistent in demonstrating that previews
can be effective in facilitating comprehension of short stories and expository passages
for elementary, junior high school, and high school students of low, average and high
ability (McCormick, 1989; Dole, Valencia, Greer & Wardrop, 1991). The studies by
Chen & Graves (1995) and Zhaojin (2003), which investigated effects of previewing
short stories provides supportive information on using previews with ESLIEFL
students. The use of previews is also supported by related cognitive theories.
According to Stanovich's (1980) interactive compensatory model, Reading is an
interactive process in which the reader uses both bottom-up and top-down processing
of the text. McCormick (1989) argues that previews are helpful because the questions
or directions in previews imply what is significant and can elicit predictions and help
students relate text information to prior knowledge.
To summarize, previous research suggests that providing background knowledge
and previewing are effective for both L1 and L2 readers. The recent research by
Chen & Graves (1995) and Zhaojin (2003) shows that previewing was significantly
superior to background knowledge in helping EFL students' understanding of
American short stories. Because of these positive evidences, providing background
knowledge and previewing formed the focus in this study. Specifically, this study
investigated the effects of providing background knowledge and previewing
American documentary narratives containing uniquely American cultural content
since so far, no comparable research has been carried out to examine whether preview
and background knowledge differ in their effectiveness for promoting ESLIEFL
reading comprehension in documentary narratives. The specific research questions
asked in the study are listed below.
1. Did students who received the background knowledge or the previewing
treatment comprehend better than those who did not receive these treatment?
2. Is previewing superior to background knowledge for documentary narratives
other than stories?
3. Is the facilitative effect of schemata on reading comprehension increased
when schemata are enriched?
52
Research Design
TESLReporter
Method
In this study, I used randomized experimental, control groups design as set out in
Table 1. By "randomized experimental, control" groups, I mean I randomly selected
and grouped 26 students from each of three intact classes into 3 groups (A, B & C).
Groups A and B were experimental groups; Group C was a control group. The two
experimental groups received prereading treatments before the test, (experimental
group A received preview treatment, experimental group B received background
knowledge treatment). The control group C did not receive any prereading treatment
before the test.
Table 1
Research Design
GroupsExperimental Experimental
Control GroupGroup Group
A B C
PrereadingPreview
BackgroundNo Activities
Activities Knowledge
Reading Text Text Text
ComprehensionTest Test Test
Measurement
Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1
The two experimental groups (Preview Group, Background Knowledge Group)
will perform significantly better than the control group in the comprehension test due
to the immediate schema-enriching effects of the prereading activities of preview and
background knowledge.
Shen - Previewing and Background Knowledge 53
Hypothesis 2
GroupA (PreviewGroup)willperformsignificantly betterthanGroup C (ControlGroup)
in the comprehension test due to the immediateschema-enriching effectsof previewing.
Hypothesis 3
Group B (Background Knowledge Group) will perform significantly better than
Group C (Control Group) in the comprehension test due to the immediate schema
enriching effects of background knowledge.
Subjects
For this study 78 students were randomly selected from three intact classes of
second year non-English majors attending the Agriculture College of Yangzhou
University. In order to minimize the priority of background knowledge of majors, care
was taken to make sure that the subjects would not be selected from history or
geography majors. The English level of selected students is at Band 3 in terms of the
National English Proficiency Unified Examination for College non-English majors
Syllabus (1991). All students participants have passed Band 3 mimic test.
Materials
Reading Selection
The selected text, which was written by American author, Leo Huberman, was
taken from his book We, the People, a collection of historical stories on immigration
to America. The book was published in 1947. The text "Here They Come" describes
the difficulties and dangers of the early immigration of people to America.
As in the research of Chen & Graves (1995) and Zhoujin (2003) care was taken
to select texts on a topic unfamiliar to most Chinese students, and one which
presupposes culture-specific information that most Chinese students lack, even during
the minimal "training" they received as part of the study.
Instrument
The purpose of this study is to investigate the value of providing background
knowledge and previewing as an aid in building schemata to improve EFL reading
comprehension. Bearing this purpose in mind, I avoided questions for which answers
were directly stated in the text when I constructed multiple-choice questions and true
or false questions. The reading comprehension questions were intended to encourage
students to make inferences both from the text and from their background knowledge
re-lating to the text. Therefore, I distinguished between 2 types of reading
comprehension questions: textually inferred (bottom-up) and interactively-inferred.
54 TESL Reporter
Textually-inferred questions require answers that can be inferred from the text only;
interactively-inferred questions require answers that can be inferred from an
interaction between the text and previously acquired knowledge.
Procedures
Preview and Background Knowledge were the introductory approaches presented
to readers before reading. Preview focused on providing general information about the
content of the upcoming text while Background Knowledge focused on providing
detailed information about the content of the upcoming text.
Preview Treatment
1. An interest-building part designed to motivate students by making a connection
between a familiar topic "the discovery of America" and the topic of the story of
immigration during the l Sth century.
2. A topic question to provide students with the opportunity to activate what they
knew about the early immigrants' journey in the 18th century. This was intended to
help students to activate relevant historical knowledge of which they might have been
unaware and relate it to the target text.
3. A brief description of the story with purpose-setting questions to help students
comprehend the text and avoid undue difficulty when they read.
Background Knowledge Treatment
1. Part one was designed to motivate students' interest and build up their
background knowledge by locating some of the most important harbors in west Europe
and America on a map of the world so as to provide students with an opportunity to
appreciate the distance of early immigrants' voyage to America and to develop initial
associations about the difficulties of early immigrants.
2. In the second part, ten words and phrases from the text were classified into
three groups to construct background knowledge: (a) key concept expressions, (b)
difficult words and phrases, (c) geographic words.
3. Part three was designed to encourage students to evaluate the usefulness of
their own ideas by providing suggestive answers to the three groups of words
discussed above.
Data Collection
On the day of the test (Dec 29, 2003), the three groups (A, B & C) of subjects were
randomly assigned to three different rooms. Next, each group was randomly assigned
to three different conditions.
Shen-Previewing and Background Knowledge 55
In the Preview condition, according to the directions for administering the
previewing in the preview material, the English teacher first gave students
introductory information about the upcoming test by posing purpose-setting questions
and then guiding students in a discussion.
In the Background Knowledge condition, the English teacher first hung a map of
the world on the blackboard and located the Netherlands, England and France for
students, pointed out the important harbors of these countries, and finally gave
students an opportunity to write down what they knew about four key concept
expressions, three difficult phrases, and three geographic words which were important
in understanding the text.
In the control condition, there was no prereading treatment before the reading
comprehension test.
Data Analysis
Answers to the multiple-choices questions and true or false questions in the test
were scored as correct or incorrect. The maximum score for multiple-choice was 5
points (5xl), and the maximum score for true or false was 5 points (5xl). Therefore,
in the test, the total score for multiple-choice and true or false questions was 10
points (lOxl).
I chose Kruskal-Wallis to test hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2 and hypothesis 3. My
reasons for choosing this statistical procedure were: I) the data are independent
because they were collected from three separate groups, 2) I am not confident that the
data are parametric since the scores taken from multiple choice questions and true or
false questions can not be measured using interval scale due to the possibly varying
degrees of difficulties among the items. In such cases, a nonparametric comparison of
the data seems more appropriate. Therefore, in my study, I used nonparametric
statistics (Kruskal- Wallis Test) to test differences and compare the means of three
independent groups.
Results
Analysis of data reievent to research hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 is presented in Tables
2 and 3. The Kruskal-Wallis Test was used to test hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2 and
hypothesis 3 to determine whether there were significant differences among the three
groups. The Kruskal-Wallis Test showed that there were significant differences among
the three groups, as H=8.043, p=0.018 (significant), d.!=2, p=0.05, the observed value
8.043 is greater than the critical p value 5.991.
56 TESLReporter
Table 2
The Mean Ranks of the Three Groups (A, B & C) in Test
Groups Number of subjects Mean Rank
Group A (Preview) 26 42.46
Group B (Background Knowledge) 26 46.27
Group C (Control) 26 29.77
Total 78
The post hoc test Ryan Procedure was used as a follow-up to ascertain whether the
two experimental groups (A&B) were significantly better than the control group (C).
Table 3
Ryan Procedure: Comparison of Critical Values and Z Valuesof the Three Groups in Test
Groups Group B Group C
Group A c.v.=2.13; z= 0.538 c.v.=2.13; Z=1.990
Group B c.v.=2.40; Z= 2.805*
Note: c.v. = critical value *= significant
Table 3 shows that a comparison of Group A and Group C indicates a small
advantage for Group A over Group C; the difference however, is not statistically
significant as the Z value (1.990) is smaller than the critical value (2.13). Therefore,
hypothesis 2 is rejected.
Table 3 however, shows a significant difference between Group B and Group C as
the Z value (2.805) is larger than the critical value (2.40). Therefore, hypothesis 3 is
supported.
Shen - Previewing and Background Knowledge 57
Overall, the data in Table 2 and 3 show a statistically significant superior
performance by the background knowledge group over the control group, while there
was no statistically significant difference in subjects' performance between the
preview group and the control group, although the preview group was still ahead of the
control group. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is only partially supported.
Discussion
In contrast to the findings of Chen & Grave (1995) and Zhaojin (2003), who found
that the preview group, but not the background knowledge group, had a significantly
superior performance over the control group, the results in this study show that the
background knowledge group had a significantly superior performance over the
control group, but not the preview group. Several explanations could account for this
unexpected result:
1. First, the background knowledge treatment provided the students with a map
of the world which gave them a geographic visual display of the distance traveled to
America by the early immigrants, and helped them to develop an initial association
with the difficulties of the early immigrants, which was the key to understanding the
upcoming text. Kolers (1973) has proposed that pictures are better than words at
depicting spatial configurations. Graphs, maps, diagrams, and flow charts are often
particularly effective in conveying the spatial and temporal relationships among
concepts.
2. Second, the background knowledge treatment focused students' attention on
detailed information which is the key to understanding the upcoming text. However,
giving students a global idea to understand the upcoming text was also covered in the
preview treatment through the preliminary outline. It could be that in my study,
providing more detailed information relevant to test item demands for comprehension
favored the background knowledge group.
3. Interesting was the fact that significantly superior performance was achieved
when the definition of geographic words such as 'important harbors' and the maps
were presented together in the background knowledge treatment. It is possible that the
reciprocal relationship between print and pictorial components through highlighting
important harbors on the map of the world and providing the definitions of the
important harbors in the background knowledge treatment facilitated students'
understanding of the location of the important harbors which is actually impossible to
state clearly in a verbal definition. My finding also supports the arguments by Mayer
& Sims (1994) and Read & Barnsley's (1977) that the contiguous presentation of
visual and verbal material made it more likely for the learners to build referential
58 TESLReporter
connections between the visual representation and the verbal representation in short
term memory which resulted in better performance.
4. Last but not least, it could be argued that the preview used in this study was
not an optimal one for facilitating students' comprehension. In relation to the contrary
findings of Chen & Graves (1995), what can we conclude from this result? Which
prereading activity is best for maximizing students' comprehension of a text? A well
known Chinese saying is "we need to get beyond the horse-race mentality" Thus, the
question is not which activity is better, but which activity is most suitable for which
type of reading. In Chen & Graves (1995) study, the reading passage used by them is
the story of O. Henry. O. Henry was famous for inventing plots that build up to sharp,
unexpected endings. Therefore, in this case, the preview treatment proved to be more
effective due to its role in providing a description of the characters, which made it
easier for students to follow the plot and organize information into a coherent mental
structure. In my study, the text is documentary narrative and has no clear plot. For this
type of text, understanding some key words, concept words and geographic words is
more important to gain an understanding of the text. Therefore, the background
knowledge, which was constructed in my study to focus on explaining concrete
information and visual representations of geographic places, proved to be more
effective in facilitating students' understanding of the upcoming text.
Implications and Applications for ESL/EFL Reading Classrooms
Materials Selection and Reading Programs
In my study, the results, in conjunction with Stanovich's findings (1998),
demonstrate that the more students know about a topic, the more they get out of a text
and therefore, the more motivated they are to learn. Stanovich (1998) calls this the
Matthew effect, after a passage in the New Testament that essentially says that "the rich
get richer and the poor get poorer." In other words, students with a rich base of domain
knowledge do better in reading comprehension. In addition, according to Carrell &
Eisterhold (1988) schemata which are repeatedly accessed and expanded, result in
increased comprehension. Thus, research suggests that teachers of ESL/EFL select
reading materials on the same topic. According to Krashen (1981), any text
comprehension depends on some relevant prior knowledge. To some degree, well
chosen texts, can, in themselves, build readers' knowledge base. In China, the important
role played by background knowledge of discipline-specific content domains is being
increasingly recognized by those involved in teaching English for Special Purposes
(ESP). Therefore, another way to organize a second/foreign language reading program
is through content-centered instruction. Such instruction would involve a conscious
Shen-Previewing and Background Knowledge 59
effort to set up basic theme-English for specific purposes courses for particular academic
or occupational groups (e.g., courses for nurses, courses for tax majors).
Key Vocabulary Instruction
Preteaching vocabulary, which is key to understanding a text, has proven effective
in background knowledge in the short term context. My finding supports the
suggestions of Carrell (1988), that an important part of teaching background
knowledge is teaching the vocabulary related to it, and conversely, teaching
vocabulary may mean teaching new concepts, new knowledge. Knowledge of
vocabulary entails knowledge of schemata in which a concept participates.
However, merely presenting a list of new or unfamiliar vocabulary items to be
encountered in a text, even with definitions appropriate to their use in that text, does
not guarantee the induction of new schemata (Carrell 1988, p. 243). In the Zhaojin
(2003) study, the prereading vocabulary activity was the least effective of all three
types of reading activities at all proficiency levels for inducing appropriate schemata.
In comparison with the preteaching vocabulary used by Zhaojin (2003), in my study,
selecting key concept words and difficult words and phrases has proven an effective
means of preteaching vocabulary. Key concept words refer to the words that carry key
cultural meanings. For example, if a student does not understand that "passage
money" refers to the cost of a long journey by ship, then he/she will find the later
discussion of the story about the passengers being bought totally incomprehensible. In
this case, preteaching of culture-specific phrases like "passage money" before reading
comprehension is absolutely necessary and effective. In my study, difficult words and
phrases refers to vocabulary and phrases that I predicted would cause difficulties
because of the Chinese students' limited understanding of more archaic English.
Therefore, a related suggestion in preteaching vocabulary in reading pedagogy is
that vocabulary preteaching should not be based on lexical difficulty or frequency, as
is often the case in China. Instead, vocabulary items selected for preteaching
instruction should be specialized vocabulary which teachers predict will cause
difficulties for most students, or words that carry cultural meanings relatively
unfamiliar to most Chinese students.
Prereading Activities
The existing reading materials for College non-English majors in China include
plenty of prereading exercises, usually in the form of prefacing the reading text with
information-seeking, or prediction questions for the reader to keep in mind while
reading. These prereading activities are intended to motivate students to read for a
purpose what follows; for example, to gain the information necessary to answer
60 TESL Reporter
questions. These are also intended to get the student to predict what the text will be
about. However, even if the prereading exercises perform these two functions, in many
reading situations they are too limited to suffice as the only type of prereading activities,
and they will not do much toward building background knowledge in the reader.
My findings show the value of background knowledge in the comprehension test
when it provides a combination of concrete information and visual representations of
geographic places. ESLIEFL teachers are therefore encouraged to design instructional
multimedia materials to aid in text comprehension. The instructional multimedia
materials could be presented in textual form, visual form, auditory form, or in any
combination of presentation modes to build "external connections" (Mayer, 1989). For
example, for vocabulary acquisition a picture may be a good choice in depicting an
individual word that represents an object mentioned in the text.
Conclusion
In this study, the superiority of providing background knowledge over previewing
suggests that background knowledge is better for maximizing students' comprehension
of documentary narrative. Further research should explore the differential
effectiveness of previewing and providing background knowledge for specific text
types (genres of expository or narrative or combination of two). Only through more
research that considers different genres covering different contents will we gain a
clearer understanding of the effects of previewing and background knowledge on
reading comprehension. Nevertheless, a study such as this one both contributes and
acts as a stimulus to further exploration of these related topics. My greatest wish is
that this study will inspire Chinese EFL teachers to help students to build their
background knowledge by providing prereading activities in consideration of different
genres of selections to be read. At the same time, I hope this study will remind them
to be more sensitive to their students' reading problems arising from a lack of cultural
background knowledge and expertise, and more willing to develop their students'
content schemata which will benefit them not only while they are in their charge, but
long after their scholastic education ends.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are given to my supervisor, Dr. Louise Jansen and Dr. Tony Liddicoat for their
valuable comments on this article. The author would also like to acknowledge helpful
suggestions from Dr. Gail Craswell.
Shen-Previewing and Background Knowledge 61
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About the Author
Shen Zhaohua (MA) (Australian National University) is an associate professor of
School of Foreign Languages, Yangrhou University. Recent interest: Language in
education, including the relationship between language and culture in the context of
EFL teaching in China.
